Do we sugarcoat our sad stories a bit too often? "The Fault in Our Stars," the new smash hit adaptation of John Green's bestselling novel, suggests we might and apologizes ahead of time for telling the truth about this particular sad story.

The film stars Shailene Woodley as Hazel, a 16-year-old cancer patient who meets and falls in love with former basketball player Gus (Ansel Elgort) at a support group for young adults with terminal illnesses.

So already, we're set up to weep here. Too many of us have stories like these we've told and heard, and we don't mind avoiding them when we can. But nearly $50 million worth of audiences said differently during this film's first weekend. Apparently, we go in willfully, ready for the truth this film insists it'll throw at us at the onset.

And does Hazel and Augustus' sweet tale of love and loss reach that truth, or does director Josh Boone bypass the harsh reality and struggle of cancer in favor of another saccharin tale between two young and awfully precocious young lovers?

Thanks to Boone's head-on, introspective approach to looking this illness and mortality squarely in the eye, Boone has no choice but to keep things honest without wandering too far down the sappy path inhabited by similarly themed films like "A Walk to Remember" or "Love Story."

But it's Woodley's empathetic and entirely human portrayal of a young woman refusing to deny her ticking clock and having the courage to tell others about it. That includes her family, despite her inclination to simply make her mom and dad happy however she can, even if it means sugarcoating her true feelings.

"The only thing worse than biting it from cancer is a kid biting it from cancer," Hazel narrates, often emphasizing how much it hurts her consider what it must feel like to outlive their child. Still, Hazel seems more comfortable with the situation than anyone, thanks to her interest in therapeutic literature and obligation to attend group therapy sessions at a nearby Episcopal church.

That's when she has a little meet-cute with the manic pixie dream boy Augustus "I'm Kind of Awesome" Waters, a former basketball star with confidence to spare and his own bout with cancer that cost him a leg. The tall dreamboat immediately takes to Hazel, makes her feel all warm and fuzzy and nearly leads her down that aforementioned sappy path with which we're all too familiar.

A girl in my theater leaned over to her friend and literally whispered "He's so beautiful," and Boone never hesitates to make it known the audience and Hazel. But their chemistry works, and Augustus' good intentions never waver even if the actor playing him, Ansel Elgort, comes off as a bit too cocky and disingenuous at times. Thankfully, we eventually see that Augustus isn't perfect, and his brashness is a defense mechanism for his own truth and fears.

Woodley and Elgort share several sweet scenes developing a tangible relationship between the two that, sure, has its share of cutesy moments but also a few that reflect real-life modern relationship banter. At one point, Augustus jokingly chastises Hazel for "wasting" her Make-A-Wish request on a cliched trip to Disney World.

Always present in the midst of this budding romance is that ticking clock these two refuse to ignore. And we can't help but feel like we're on a countdown to sorrow, as comedian Louis CK might call it. The ooey-gooeyness of Hazel and Augustus' young love story gives us all the feels at all the moments you'd expect, especially during a fancy dinner on a side-trip to Amsterdam, but Green's story once again prohibits Boone's direction fleeing reality.

The strength of "The Fault in Our Stars" lies in Hazel's confrontation of her destiny, how we choose to cope with our mortality even at such a young age when there's just too much life left for us to live. Hazel and Augustus share a lovelorn friend with an eye illness who says simply, "I just want to cry and play video games" when dealing with the pain of that ailment along with an ill-timed breakup.

At one point, the two take a tourist trip to Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam where they finally share an embrace Hazel knows she can no longer avoid. As she struggles to walk up the steep steps of the multi-storied house, you hear audio excerpts of "The Diary of Anne Frank" reflecting Hazel's own state of mind in her own survival.

"Think of all the beauty around you, and be happy," one excerpt reads, as she chooses in that moment to give in to the happiness aggressively wearing her down instead of her cancer attempting to do the same.

Woodley seems at times incapable of delivering a false feeling on screen, following other heartfelt turns in "The Descendants" and last year's "The Spectacular Now." In a scene that could turn pretty corny pretty fast, Hazel snaps Augustus back to reality in a discussion about his personal fear of oblivion, a once-underhanded confession he made at a group session that now seems like a real possibility to him. Her reassurance about the role he's played in her life reveals the impact we truly have on each other in times of unexpected and inevitable despair, and we believe every word from Woodley.

"The Fault in Our Stars" tells a sad story, yes. If you cry at movies, you'll cry at this one. Tearjerkers aren't a new phenomenon in movie theaters, but the phenomenon that is this book and now the highly profitable film adaptation suggests we seek it out more than we realize.

But, like "50/50" in 2011, this story approaches cancer candidly and doesn't hesitate to ask tough questions of ourselves when we want to block it all out. We don't ignore the tragedy, but we don't let it defeat us. There's too much life left to live for us to dwell on the darkness, and this one gets that.